Poll: Grading The Cardinals’ Extension Of Yadier Molina

Yadier Molina exudes excellence and personifies the Cardinal Way. He’s one of the best and most durable catchers in the game. He’s coming off a year in which he slashed a robust .307/.360/.427 and continued to earn plaudits for his work behind the plate and guidance of the pitching staff.

So, the three-year, $60MM deal he just signed to stay with the Cardinals through 2020 would seem at first glance to be a slam dunk. It’s a top-of-the-market AAV for a catcher, true, but also just a three-year commitment. For a player who’s an arguable Hall-of-Famer and undisputed franchise icon — and, reputedly, a clubhouse leader without peer — it seems like an easy gamble to make.

On the other hand, Molina will turn 35 in the middle of the season that just kicked off. He hasn’t hit double-digit home runs since 2013, which is also the last time his isolated slugging mark exceeded .120. Molina’s surge at the plate last year was fueled by a career-high .335 BABIP. His defensive productivity seems likely to slow down at least somewhat as the wear and tear catches up; his durability is a feather in the cap, on the one hand, but he has also logged 1,583 games behind the dish (including today’s game) in the majors.

Consider, too, the opportunity cost. Around this time last year, the division-rival Pirates got Francisco Cervelli — then on the heels of an outstanding 2015 season and having just begun his age-30 campaign — to agree to a three-year deal at nearly half ($31MM) the guarantee Molina received. While Molina certainly has a claim to receiving the league’s top annual salary for a catcher, it’s tough to promise that rate at his age, and it’ll certainly tie up payroll that could’ve gone elsewhere. Remember, too, that the Cards have one of the game’s best catching prospects in Carson Kelly waiting in the wings at Triple-A.

There’s a middle ground here, of course. Molina has always been fairly reliant on batting average to reach base, because he doesn’t walk all that much. But he has continued to carry an outstanding contact rate and showed no signs of slowing in that regard in 2016. While the power won’t likely return to even average levels, perhaps he can keep hitting at a solid-enough rate so long as he maintains his hand-eye coordination. Likewise, the dark arts of the catcher — receiving, blocking, throwing, calling pitches, and managing a staff — are perhaps more dependent upon a blend of mental acuity, hard-earned experience, and ingrained reflexes than are the tools of any other position. And Kelly’s presence can be seen as a positive; perhaps he’ll help keep Molina fresh while learning from the game’s top catching sensei. The Cardinals have acted to lock up other core players to more manageable salaries, so the team can probably afford a bit of an extravagance to keep a key veteran who’ll provide continuity and unrivaled leadership.

So, there are several ways to characterize this signing. How do you view it? (Link for app users.)

Comments

Can they maybe package Alex Reyes, Carson Kelly and Magneuris Sierra for Quintana. All players are either blocked at the MLB level or hurt. May be a bit light but around what the Red Sox gave up for sale.

Depends on how the chisox/st Louis now value Reyes. It’d be risky for Chicago, but could end up being a franchise changer. For St. Louis it’d give them a guarenteed 200 inning pitcher that’s controllable whose ERA would drop even further in the NL. Risk is if Reyes turns out to be what he was expected then they probably would regret it

I don’t see how the top catching prospect in the game, the top pitching prospect in the game, and a good OF prospect would be a little light tbh. If the Cards offered that I’d expect an immediate acceptance from the White Sox

Top catching prospect in the game – according to the consensus worst prospect ranking site… He’s ranked third, at best, pretty much everywhere else. Last year was the only year of his young career where he looked like he might be capable of hitting a baseball. And this is coming from someone that is high on Carson Kelly…

Top pitching prospect in the game – before he had tommy john surgery. That’s kind of a big deal…

If this was before the Reyes injury, I think the White Sox would’ve been interested. Now? Personally, I’d still be interested but not 100% sold on it.

I don’t think he’s the best catching prospect in the game, but I think he’s the best defensive catching prospect in the game, at least among the top 10 catching prospects in the game (if that makes any sense).

Kelly’s bat is a mystery in terms of how far it develops. He’s pretty big and could have some great in game power and be a .750-.800 OPS catcher. Or he could be a .600 OPS catcher who calls a great game and is a defensive threat, but not much else.

But he’ll certainly stick at catcher, where some of the other good catching prospects don’t have the gloves, but their bats are more advanced and could be two way weapons. They also may not stick at catcher (referring to Mejia and Alfaro) depending how they develop.

Giving up Kelly would be tough. Assuming Peralta gone next season I see Carpenter shifting back to 3rd, Molina and Adams sharing 1st (when Molina is not catching) and Kelly slowly getting starts behind the dish.

I don’t see the need, at this point, to give up the best catching prospect in the game.

Agree also. Same with another post here. Allows him to retire with only team he’s played with that is something rarely seen now, so giving him slight over pay isn’t a big deal.

Every long term franchise type player isn’t willing to take a home team discount (Pedroia). We’ve seen Jeter hammer NY in the past for well over top dollar so the Yankees could see him retire in that uniform, same with Posada. Take what the cards reupped Molina for here and it’s definitely workable.

20 million isn’t a huge commitment payroll wise, they can eat that money going into 2018. I wouldn’t say it’s a true block either, I could see Kelly or Yadi playing some 1B in 2018, and Marp returning to 3B with Peralta leaving via free agency. Not a bad deal at all, I trust the cardinals’ dealing ways, they have a knack for making the right moves.

WAR doesn’t adequately value catchers. For a little under a decade Molina was the best defensive player in the game. There are players that make the hall of fame because their overall contribution was great, and there are others that make it because they were simply the best at one aspect of the game. Molina is a no doubt hall of famer.

I think we can all agree that this is a legacy contract, similar to what the Yankees gave Jeter several years ago.

They are clearly overpaying him and want him to retire as a Cardinal.

But I thought I would share some additional information about Yadier that most probably aren’t aware.

I find myself in the middle on Molina. Cards fans are obsessive with him. They think he’s the greatest catcher literally ever. He’s clearly not. But I also believe that most non-Cardinal fans are very unaware of how valuable he really is. And that is largely because the defensive values that catchers bring is still very challenging to quantify. So the best thing we can do is compile all of the data that we know about their defensive prowess, and simply share it.

Cards fans love to talk about how Molina is the heartbeat of the Cardinals and his intangibles, oh my goodness the intangibles!

Well I don’t care about intangibles, I care about what can be measured.

I’ve had the pleasure of watching Molina catch since 2004. And he is certainly more than just his raw numbers. He does some things defensively that I’ve just never seen before. He calls every game, really manages the pitching rotation. He has a cannon of an arm, and teams just stopped running on him until last year.

So I thought I would share some Yadi numbers and how they compare to arguably the three other great catchers over the last decade (I didn’t include Lucroy, though, arguably I should have).

Some information regarding Molina

Yadi is fairly similar offensively to Martin, who is also the most comparable to Molina defensively, though he is well short there. But he is well short offensively to Mauer and Posey, I think we all know that.

WAR really undervalues catchers, we know that. The only real defensive value it measures is caught stealing rates and assists. We know there is a ton more to catching than that. So here are some additional defensive numbers for Molina that you may not know.

Since 2004, Molina has had a grand total of 724 stolen base attempts against him in 13,254 innings, or one attempt every 18.3 innings.

McCann has had 1059 attempts against him in 11,508 innings. One every 10.9 innings.

Posey has had 549 attempts against and caught 5976 innings (yes, less than half as many innings as Molina). Which is one attempt every 10.9 innings.

Martin has had 1043 stolen base attempts against, in 11,644 innings. Which is one every 11.1 innings.

Mauer has had 545 stolen base attempts in 7883 innings. Which is one every 14.5 innings played.

Nobody is more afraid to run on a catcher than they are to run on Molina. No other catcher in baseball even comes close to the suppression of the running game.

Mauer, who is leading in the WAR category, hasn’t been a catcher for years, and has played half as many innings as Molina there. He is ahead by 12-15 WAR depending which measure you want to value. But let’s not pretend he has been doing all of his production as a catcher. 56% of the innings he has been involved in on the field (includes time as DH) has been at the catcher position. But he’s less than 50% ahead in total WAR.

cERA vs backups. This one took awhile to calculate because I had to manually calculate it.

Molina – 3.61
Backups – 4.21
Difference +0.60

Martin – 3.67
Backups – 3.65
Difference -0.02

Mauer – 4.05
Backups – 4.48
Difference – +.43

Posey – 3.50
Backups – 3.69
Difference – +0.19

McCann – 3.81
Backups – 3.99
Difference – +0.18

Assists to other bases (doesn’t include dropped third strikes)
Molina – 223 – One every 59.43 innings (also the most assists to second and third base – 21 to second, 16 to third)
Martin – 197 – One every 59.11 innings
Mauer – 55 (has never thrown a player out at second or third for an assist) – One every 143.33 innings
Posey – 98 – One every 60.99 innings
McCann – 234 – One every 49.18 innings (all but 17 to first base though)

This is why Molina has been the greatest catcher in baseball since Pudge.

If you just want to value fWAR, and pretend like there isn’t more to catching than hitting and throwing out base runners, be my guest.

And I didn’t get into frame rates, because that’s even more time than I feel like spending on this.

I’d say he’s been the best catcher in baseball since Pudge declined and retired. Posey is catching quickly and with his superior bat and also solid defense, he’ll likely retire better than Yadi as a catcher all-time. But defensively, it’s probably been since Boone since we’ve seen a defensive catcher this good. Which is a position where defense is certainly the most important.

Also, fwiw. I’d like to see catchers receive a 20% WAR bonus or so to help them catch up with other positions (likely in the defensive break-up) as well additional components in defensive values for catchers valued under WAR.. Durability is such an issue for catchers that they really just never accur the WAR you need to compare them to other positions. A 70 WAR position player is basically a borderline guy, but a 55 WAR catcher is.

I like Yadi and think he has been a very good player and one of the better catchers for the past decade, but I don’t see how he is a HOF unless he puts up another 5 great seasons. His defense has been excellent, but he has had only 3 or 4 worthwhile offensive seasons in his entire career. Just for comparison sake, look at the two catchers below. One is Yadi and the other was a very good catcher of the last 40 years who received 9 votes and 1.7% of the vote in his first and only year on the HOF ballot. This is thru age 33 seasons for both players.

The other player wasn’t done at this point either. He added another silver slugger and all star nod while hitting an additional 63 HR and having a 96 OPS+ over 465 more games and he couldn’t even stay on the ballot. I just don’t think Yadi’s defense is enough to overcome what has been only an ok bat.

Another 5? So you want a catcher to produce at the highest level for 18 years in order to be considered? Every player, past and present, who is or ever will be eligible for the HOF is happy that you are not a voter for the HOF.

That;s not what he is saying. A great catcher needs to be great for a decade or so. A very good catcher (Yadi, Lance Parrish, Catcher A in his example) need to be very good for a very long time to compile and maybe even then they don’t get in.

While Yadi’s intangibles are legendary, his tangibles are a little more pedestrian and probably put him on the wrong side of the ballot.

Hard to say whether or not he is a Hall of Famer. I am a Cardinals fan and would LOVE to see Molina enshrined in Cooperstown.

It’s always interesting with this debate because he truly is one of the best defensive catchers to ever play. He’s been durable even up to this point, won multiple gold gloves (for what it’s worth), and does wonders for his pitchers. I’m not going to go into the advanced stats because clearly I am late to that party, but his advanced stats are there defensively.

However, we can’t ignore the fact that he does have below average stats for a Hall of Fame player. He never really had a bat that made pitchers shake in their shoes. I remember when he first came up; he hardly did ANYTHING switch the bat. Eventually though, he figured it out and started hitting well. I think we have to ask if his offense weakens his resume that is mainly defensive.

I believe given his position and by the time it is said and done, he will get there. It may take him a few years to get in, but with his defensive superiority and the success he has had as a Cardinal, I believe he should get in there.

Great poll, and I think the collective thinking is right on with this one. He’ll be paid a bit more than he’s worth to other teams, but a good move for the Cards to lock in one of their leaders. Plus with Reyes, Weaver, Alcantara, Flaherty… coming up over the next few years Yadi will be very valuable to those young pitchers.

As far as trading Kelly, I think that’s the likely outcome at this point. No need to let a strong trade chip sit unhappy for years when he is just about ready now – bat has been catching up to defense. A Reyes / Kelly trade for Quintana makes more sense than ever. It would be a good trade for both teams, Kelly working with Reyes, Lopez, Kopech, Giolito for years to come.

Something that I think gets overlooked a little bit is how terrible most teams’ starting catchers are. There’s a legitimate case that Molina is still a top 5 catcher in baseball right now (doubt that he will be in 3 years, but one more great season in 2017 and one average one in 2018 would make this well worth it for the team). Having one of the better catching prospects in baseball (I tend to think he’s #1, but I get arguments for Mejia) complicates things for the Cardinals, but Kelly can be traded to help plug an immediate hole in July. Altogether, I actually think it’s a good move from a pure baseball perspective, not even factoring in Molina’s intangible value to the organization that I can’t speak to

I think one point to be made is the money is not really an issue. It’s not a long contract by any means so it has a relatively short lived impact. There’s a significant difference in this one and what Pujols would have gotten. Pujols contract would have been near devastating to the Cards future plans. If management wants to spend money on Yadi, they can and it doesn’t hurt their ability to sign or extend other players. As large as the contract may sound to fans, it really has no negative impact on the Cards future. If he gets hurt, it just speeds Kelly (league minimum) to the majors and he has a personal coach helping him. In other words, even an injury isn’t devastating to the Cards plans because they wouldn’t have to go out, find, and pay for a quality catcher.

I do think it can’t be said enough how valuable it will be for Carson Kelly, who learned to catch in the minors, to have the opportunity to be mentored by Molina over the next couple of years. Molina has already taken the time to mentor Kelly quite a bit-he’s a natural teacher and is well respected in the organization.

As stated earlier, I’m curious why fans are hung up on the amount with it being such a short contract, a cheap alternative in tow in case of injury, and the fact it has no impact on the Cards financial ability to sign anyone in free agency or to extend their own players. They’ve already extended two others this offseason.

From the “Cardinal Way” to the Cardinal Weight — the weight of an overpaid, too-long contract for a player in decline.
Call it what it is: A legacy contract for past performance and fan brownie points.

Irrelevant.
The Molina deal exists no matter what team(s) I pull for, My take would be true even if my favorite team signed a declining fan-fave to an overpaying deal (which they’ve done.) Especially when said deal is at least a year too long, and pays for past performance and future turnstile traffic.
Molina had the FO over a barrel, and he played them like a pro.

But it’s not irrelevant that you cheer for the Cubs. You have a built in disdain for the Cardinals. With that said sure it is an over pay on the tangibles aspect. It’s not on the intangibles. Yadi brings more to the club house and fan base than what can be truly calculated. Kelly is going to be very good, but Yadi’s teaching over the next three years to young pitching is probably impossible to calculate. IF one of these young pitchers see something from him that sends them onto stardom then this contract becomes an under pay. With that said it is a slight over pay. But I and many of the fans that come through the turnstiles have no problem with it.

I was addressing other commenters who insist on comparing apples and oranges, but since you put your foot in….
Glad you’re happy with your team and its ownership, FO, manager, and players. I’m sure they are glad of your support and dollars.
May your city’s finer aspects thrive.
May all MLB rivalries and fans be sane, and act with reasonable perspective and courtesy.

Sounds like Jason Hayward. Molina’s contract is extremely short. It has zero to no impact on the team budget. Even if he gets hurt, they have a ready League minimum) replacement that Molina can mentor. There are no negative consequences for the Cardinals in this deal.

HoF voting should be done on a generational basis. ‘Was Player_X one of the absolute top players at his position for about a decade?’ (obviously parameters are flexible…) Yadi is a strong Yes to that question. Use the scenario of transplanting a player from one time-frame to another, HoF catchers from decades ago would probably not be in the majors this year. Yadi playing in 1950s would be a legend talked about nowadays.

As others have suggested, WAR is an awful stat for measuring catchers.

I have to disagree with you here. Yadi has been one of the best at this position for about 6 years. Looking at the 4 seasons before (07-10) and he was not one of the best overall catchers. He was good defensively, but his bat was not. His average season was 6 HR and a 92 wRC+. Now if he is able to put up another 4-5 above average offensive seasons, while keeping his defense above average, he’ll put himself into the HOF discussion.

simply not true. The contract has no real impact on the Cards budget and it is very short. Even if it doesn’t work out they have a league minimum replacement with a built in mentor ready to go. If it’s short-sighted, it’s because the contract is short. Very short. In other words-absolutely no long=term impact on the Cards plans. Again-short contract. Not sure why the angst when it is obviously SHORT. very short.

The money the cardinals gave Molina is irrelevant. It’s 3 years. The team just signed a $1 billion tv deal. Money isn’t an issue and I’d much rather the money go into Molina’s pocket than DeWitt just sit on it. They still have plenty of money left over.